Introduction
The Low Carbon and Materials Processing group is a research group within the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Our work has two main themes: developing innovative materials processing technologies, mainly for flexible forming of metal under computer control; and, identifying and pursuing opportunities where engineering can contribute to a low carbon future, particularly through reduced energy demand in industry.
Our current research falls into four linked areas:
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WellFormed – we develop novel computer controlled forming processes and seek to understand and exploit their unconventional mechanical behaviour
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WellMet2050 – a 5-year £1.5m “Leadership Fellowship” awarded by the UK government through the EPSRC is funding a major study into the technological, physical and business requirements for meeting global 2050 carbon emission reduction targets for steel and aluminium
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WellMade – we look for radically new sustainable ways to process and manage materials, particularly to meet carbon emissions reduction targets, and develop technologies to allow non-destructive recycling of materials.
- Foreseer – the Foreseer tool examines connected energy, land, and water futures through the use of Sankey diagrams. It is funded by BP.
Our lab includes many novel technologies that we have invented and are investigating. Our work is described in presentations, publications and videos and we run the “Engineering for a Low Carbon Future” seminar series in Cambridge.
We have provided a short introduction to our work in the brochure:
Energy and Material Efficiency in a Nutshell [pdf 580kb]